Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Woman Defends the Beating of Women

Zinnia Jones linked to this story on Man Boobz that documents a Reddit thread where a woman — the same woman in the video here at Cristina Rad’s blog — actually defends men who beat women on the grounds that the woman might be nagging him and, besides, the men think of the violence as foreplay and that it leads to better sex. Think I’m exaggerating? I’m not.
This was written in response to an article that defended violence against women, concluding:

Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.

And girlsayswhat has this bizarre take on that article:

I used to live under a young couple with a baby. I’d listen as she followed him from room to room upstairs, stomping, slamming things, throwing things, screaming. After about an hour, he’d eventually hit her, and everything would go quiet. An hour after that, they’d be out with the baby in the stroller, looking perfectly content with each other.

A man I know who has experience with men in abusive relationships would get his clients to answer a questionare. Things like, “after the violence, did you have sex?” “If so, how would you rate the sex?” 100% of men in reciprocally abusive relationships said “yes” to the first, and “scorching” to the second.

He also posited that the much-quoted cycle of violence–the build-up, the explosion, the honeymoon period–correlates with foreplay, orgasm and post-coital bliss.

Erin Pizzey called it “consensual violence”, and said in the main, that was the type she’d see at her shelter. It is also the type that results in the most severe injuries in women, surprise surprise, likely because our “never EVER hit a woman” mentality has those men waiting until they completely lose control of their emotions before giving their women what they’re demanding.

The DV in Sleeping with the Enemy is the most rare form out there, half as common as “matriarchal terrorism”, and injuries are typically less severe. It’s seriously foolish to treat all cases like the most rare type, and refuse to address women’s instigation and participation in violence.

I don’t really find too much in the article that strikes me as seriously ethically questionable. DV isn’t pretty. Neither is the article.

This left my jaw agape, as it should yours. There’s much more of this kind of vile commentary in the thread, including statements like these from others:

[ghebert001] I would assume the majority of men who hit their girlfriends or wives don’t do it “just because”…they do it because the woman keeps emotionally manipulating and abusing the poor guy to the point where, non-violent as he may be, he reaches his breaking point, snaps and then proceeds to lay the smackdown as they say…

[JeremiahGuy] Almost all domestic violence is caused by women…Fact is, if men were allowed to discipline their women, domestic violence would be rare, as women wouldn’t start shit in the first place.

And when ghebert001 said that “violence shouldn’t be allowed or encouraged” by anyone, JeremiahGuy replied:

You’re arguing for a fascist police state that criminalizes masculinity.

This shouldn’t really be too shocking. Women have long been charged with the task of keeping other women in line. Most slut shaming is entrusted to older women or women of status in the community, who receive respectability in exchange for policing the behavior of other women.

You can’t know what a person stands for just by looking at them.

(Also, I 100% agree that “reciprocal violence” exists, and that some relationships are built on it, maybe even the relationship that girlsayswhat describes. That’s not really the point. Just because there exist relationships where both parties are abusive doesn’t mean that we can excuse ourselves from helping people in abusive relationships – reciprocal or not – if they want out.)

So she’s property, not a person… JeremiahGuy apparently learned all he knows about male/female interaction from John Norman’s “Gor” novels.

I don’t know how David (the fellow who runs Man Boobz) can stand to read this kind of shit on a daily basis. It makes me want to throw up, or perhaps curl into a ball and stare at funny cat pictures for the rest of the day.

A man I know who has experience with men in abusive relationships would get his clients to answer a questionare. Things like, “after the violence, did you have sex?” “If so, how would you rate the sex?” 100% of men in reciprocally abusive relationships said “yes” to the first, and “scorching” to the second.

Um, wow. Did the women also rate the post-beating sex as “scorching” or were their opinions just considered irrelevant?

Erin Pizzey called it “consensual violence”, and said in the main, that was the type she’d see at her shelter. It is also the type that results in the most severe injuries in women, surprise surprise, likely because our “never EVER hit a woman” mentality has those men waiting until they completely lose control of their emotions before giving their women what they’re demanding.

WTF? So, if the injuries aren’t “severe”, it’s just normal foreplay? And it’s not torture if it doesn’t leave a visible injury.

I’m confused – are they suggesting that mutually abusive relationships are a model by which we should strive to live? Despite the admitted fact that it lands so many women in shelters with serious injuries? Because their partners rate the make-up sex as “scorching?”

Fact is, if men were allowed to discipline their women, domestic violence would be rare

Just what I was thinking, DaveL. What? What does count as domestic violence– stabbing her?

Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.

Funny, I thought that terrorizing people was behaving like a chimp.

Has the notion of leaving a partner ever occurred to any of othese people? Or even just walking out the door and going somewhere else for a while? And are women justified in “disciplining their men” too, or is that just a one-way thing?

Erin Pizzey called it “consensual violence”, and said in the main, that was the type she’d see at her shelter.

No, consensual violence is called BDSM. People into BDSM don’t end up at fucking shelters because of it.

Years ago I was in a serious long-term relationship with a young woman who equated violence with passion. I didn’t use that as an excuse to become violent with her. But she certainly did try to provoke me on occasion, even resorting to violence herself. She straight out asked me to be more physical with her. I was young and naive and thought I could help her. Mostly I just got good at dodging flying objects. You don’t want to know how much damage a cast-iron frying pan can cause.

I’m not sure I have a point. I’m certainly not suggesting that being violent with her would have been justified. It was just a, “Hey, I’ve experienced that,” moment when reading.

Erin Pizzey called it “consensual violence”, and said in the main, that was the type she’d see at her shelter. It is also the type that results in the most severe injuries in women, surprise surprise, likely because our “never EVER hit a woman” mentality has those men waiting until they completely lose control of their emotions before giving their women what they’re demanding.

Did any of these pro-abuse nuts ever consider that visibly discouraging violence by legal and social means could cause people to grow up with greater self-restraint? Did they ever consider that allowing such a gaping loophole to the prohibition on violence would, in fact, discourage the development of self-control and encourage people to cope with adversity through violence, so long as people are permissive of that violence?

Treating an abuser as if he’s entitled and expected to be violent removes the guilt he should be feeling. Of course, making violent people feel guilty about being violent would hurt their feelings and make them feel less privileged, so we can’t have that.

Reminds me of one cultural practice I read about a decade ago that essentially allowed people in the culture to be declared “wild pigs” and wreak havoc and vent their anger without being held responsible for the harm they do in their wild pig state. After they got their fill of destruction, they would return to society without facing consequences for that destruction. Naturally, the major criticism of the practice was that it reinforced the urge to deal with frustration through violence, rather than prevent violence. It removed the angry person’s sense of responsibility to restrain himself. It provided an incentive to be violent by providing a codified “safe” way to do it.

If you really do have to vent your anger, learn to do it on inanimate objects you have permission to destroy, not on something that can suffer.

“But dear Sultana, how unfair it is to shut in the harmless women and let loose the men.”

“Why? It is not safe for us to come out of the zenana, as we are naturally weak.”

“Yes, it is not safe so long as there are men about the streets, nor is it so when a wild animal enters a marketplace.”

“Of course not.”

“Suppose, some lunatics escape from the asylum and begin to do all sorts of mischief to men, horses and other creatures; in that case what will your countrymen do?”

“They will try to capture them and put them back into their asylum.”

“Thank you! And you do not think it wise to keep sane people inside an asylum and let loose the insane?”

“Of course not!” said I laughing lightly.

“As a matter of fact, in your country this very thing is done! Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women, shut up in the zenana! How can you trust those untrained men out of doors?”

“We have no hand or voice in the management of our social affairs. In India man is lord and master, he has taken to himself all powers and privileges and shut up the women in the zenana.”

There were times, in the past, when it was the socital norm for husbands to beat their wives, for parents to beat their children, for anyone to beat their servants and their animals. And guess what? Everyone spent a lot of time hitting and being hit. It didn’t stop people from arguing, or disobeying. It just meant people were bruised and broken. (See: Middle Ages through the ‘modern age’.)

It’s like they think that back in the ‘good old days’ everyone behaved, women never nagged, children never misbehaved, animals were perfectly trained, and everyone knew their ‘place’. If that were true, why would everyone have spent so much time beating eachother? The ‘good old days’ were terrible!

…likely because our “never EVER hit a woman” mentality has those men waiting until they completely lose control of their emotions before giving their women what they’re demanding.

Huh. I grew up in the fifties and early sixties, and as a RealMan® in training, I was taught, among other things, that real men don’t hit women. But my dad and his peers were the WWII generation, so what did they know of manliness and old school behavior?

After 36 years with my sweetie, I don’t remember ever having to fight an impulse to hit her(1). Guess I must have one hell of a disciplining session building up, but dang if I can feel it coming on.

(1) OK, we might have clobbered each other a few times training in martial arts, but I don’t think that counts.

2)I’d listen as she followed him from room to room upstairs, stomping, slamming things, throwing things, screaming. After about an hour, he’d eventually hit her, and everything would go quiet.”

From the part written in bold, it is obvious that it was self-defense by the man.

3)Erin Pizzey called it “consensual violence”

She probably meant Erin Pizzey called it “mutual violence”. It was probably a honest mistake.

And, on ghebert001:

I would assume the majority of men who hit their girlfriends or wives don’t do it “just because”…they do it because the woman keeps emotionally manipulating and abusing the poor guy to the point where, non-violent as he may be, he reaches his breaking point, snaps and then proceeds to lay the smackdown as they say…

It might happen… Let’s not forget that:
a) men tend to be less believed than women when they are victims of DV;
b) some victims of DV do resort to drastic measures when they are victims of emotional DV for years – beating who victimizes them and even kill them.

I do doubt it is the “majority of men”, but it might be a significant minority of them.